Resultados23 letters/passages
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.02
… d you saw fit to grant to those very petitioners what they had asked. 7. Though imperial power is great, consider, Emperor, how great God is. He sees the hearts of all, He examines the innermost conscience, He knows all things before they happen — He knows the hidden depths of your heart. You do not allow yourselves to …
ambrose_milan · c. 380 · score 0.02
Your brother Gratian removed them by formal rescript. Will you now undo what your father allowed to stand and your brother actively abolished? The petition claims to come from the Senate. But the Christian senators — who are the majority — did not consent to it. They did not sign it. They did not authorize it. A handfu …
ambrose_milan · c. 380 · score 0.02
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most blessed prince and most Christian Emperor Valentinian. All who live under Roman rule serve you, the emperors and princes of the world. But you yourselves serve Almighty God and the holy faith. There is no path to salvation unless everyone worships in truth the true God — the God of the Chri …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.02
Since I am bound by my own words before both God and all people, I felt that nothing else was allowable or necessary for me but to act according to my conscience, since I could not fully trust you. I kept back and concealed my grief for a long time. I thought it wrong to confide it to anyone. Now I can no longer preten …
ambrose_milan · c. 389 · score 0.02
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most merciful prince and most blessed Emperor Theodosius. I am always burdened with cares, most blessed Emperor, but I have never been in such distress as now — because I see that I must guard against anything that could be charged to me as sacrilege. I beg you: hear me patiently. If I am unwort …
ambrose_milan · c. 388 · score 0.02
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most merciful prince and most blessed Emperor Theodosius. I am constantly burdened with cares, most blessed Emperor, but I have never been in such distress as now. I see that I must take every precaution against anything that might be charged to me as approaching sacrilege. I beg you: hear me wi …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
Ambrose explains to the Emperor Eugenius [a Western usurper emperor, 392-394, a former rhetoric teacher elevated by the Frankish general Arbogast] why he was absent from Milan. He then reproaches him for his concessions to pagan worship. This, he says, was why he did not write sooner, and he promises to treat him with …
ambrose_milan · c. 388 · score 0.01
Punish the rioters if justice demands it — but do not compel a Christian bishop to build a synagogue. That is not justice. That is a triumph of those who deny Christ over those who confess him. If you will not hear me as a counselor, hear me at least as an intercessor. I would rather owe you gratitude for mercy than be …
ambrose_milan · c. 381 · score 0.01
… to recognize the devil's favorite instrument. The basilica was surrendered. The imperial hangings were removed. The people sang hymns of relief and thanksgiving. But even then, a notary came to me with a warning: "Ambrose, you despise the emperor. I see that you wish for death." I answered: "God grant that I do not des …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
… s are not allowed to contribute to idol worship. 3. My letters were read in the imperial council. Count Bauto [a Frankish general in Roman service], a man of the highest military rank, was present, as was Rumoridus — also of the same rank and devoted to pagan worship from his earliest youth. Valentinian at that time fo …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
For when in the city of Tyre the quinquennial games were being held and the extremely wicked king of Antioch [Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid persecutor of the Jews] had come to attend, Jason appointed agents to carry three hundred silver didrachms from Jerusalem and give them for the sacrifice to Hercules. But th …
ambrose_milan · c. 389 · score 0.01
Either way, the church loses. Is that your intention? I am not saying that the synagogue should have been burned. I am saying that the remedy you have chosen is worse than the offense. Punish the rioters, if you must — but do not compel a bishop to rebuild with his own money a place where Christ is blasphemed. That is …
ambrose_milan · c. 388 · score 0.01
… is called the will of God. When Jews suffer, it is called an outrage requiring imperial intervention. Consider Julian the Apostate. He ordered the Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. What happened? Fire burst from the foundations and consumed the workers. Even the elements refused to cooperate. Shall a Christia …
ambrose_milan · c. 381 · score 0.01
… officials had been sent from the palace to seize the Portian basilica — hanging imperial curtains as a sign of confiscation, while part of the crowd was already heading there. I stayed at my post and began celebrating the Eucharist. During the offering, I heard that a certain Castulus — an Arian priest, the people said …
ambrose_milan · c. 397 · score 0.01
The clerical life and the monastic life are not the same, though they share much. A good monk is not automatically a good bishop, any more than a good soldier is automatically a good general. The skills are different. But the foundation — discipline, prayer, self-denial, obedience — must be the same. Do not choose a ma …
ambrose_milan · c. 397 · score 0.01
They dress like monks but live like libertines. They affect holiness in public and pursue indulgence in private. They have drawn others after them into the same ruin. I say plainly: a man who abandons the monastic life for the world has not found freedom; he has found a different kind of slavery. The flesh he thought h …
ambrose_milan · c. 397 · score 0.01
Ambrose, a servant of Christ, called to be a bishop, to the church of Vercellae and to all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: grace be fulfilled in you from God the Father and his only-begotten Son, in the Holy Spirit. I am spent with grief that the church of God among you is still without a bishop, and tha …
ambrose_milan · c. 382 · score 0.01
To the lady my sister, dearer to me than my eyes and life — Ambrose, Bishop. Since I want nothing that happens here in your absence to escape your knowledge, you must know that we have discovered the bodies of holy martyrs. After I dedicated the basilica, many people, as if with one voice, said: "Consecrate it as you d …
ambrose_milan · c. 382 · score 0.01
Taking my text from Psalm 19 — "The heavens declare the glory of God" — I explained that the "heavens" are the martyrs and apostles, and "the day" is their confession. These men were humbled by God and then raised up. Their blood, shed centuries ago, still speaks. The earth that held them could not contain their testim …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to Sabinus — greetings. I am writing from my bed, which should tell you all you need to know about my current condition. The body that once carried me through Senate debates and provincial administration now protests at the effort of holding a pen. Do not worry — I have been ill before and recovered. But each i …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose, Bishop, to the faithful. Tobit was a righteous man living in exile, and his story teaches us what righteousness looks like under pressure. He buried the dead when it was illegal to do so (Tobit 1:17-18). He fed the hungry from his own table. He maintained his faith in a foreign land surrounded by those who had …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to Orontianus — greetings. You asked why the righteous suffer, and there is no better place to begin than the book of Job. Job was blameless (Job 1:1). God himself said so. And then God allowed Satan to destroy everything Job had — his children, his wealth, his health, his reputation. The suffering was not puni …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to the faithful. I have preached on Psalm 119 for many weeks now, and it is time to draw the threads together. This psalm is the longest in the Psalter — 176 verses, eight for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its length is not accidental. The psalmist is saying: the law of God cannot be summarized in a sente …